Expert: Bruce E. Johnson - 10/5/2009

Question
We have a full basement that we would like to finish and our laundry room is down there. The problem is the only entrance is through our garage. Is it possible to make another entrance through the upper level or to make it flow with the house using the garage entrance without taking away too much of garage space?

Answer
Hi Lisa, the answer is yes and maybe.  Without seeing a floor plan of your house and knowing some other pertinent facts like how many feet it is from the top of the main floor to the top of the basement floor it is hard to make a definitive statement.  When installing stairs you have to keep in mind that a staircase requires a certain amount of room to accommodate the cummulative depth of the stair treads.  This is called the "run". The height from the bottom floor to the the top floor is called the "rise".  For example if it is say 108" from floor to floor then you will need 15 vertical risers of 7 1/4". There is generally one less tread than there are risers so you will have 14 treads..The formula for common stairs is two times a riser plus a tread should be around 25"..so your treads can be ten to eleven inches..so using a ten inch tread as an example times 14 you need 140 inches of available space in the basement for your new stairs plus at least three feet at the bottom of the stairs for a landing.  Your new stair will take up nearly fifteen feet of space in the basement.  Upstairs you will need an opening large enough to walk down the stairs without hitting your head on the floor joists.  In the example case the opening will be about 3/4 of the stair run or 11-12'..so upstairs you will have  a hole in your floor the width of the staircase 11-12 feet long.  With this information in mind do you have enough available space up and down stairs to accommodate a new stairwell location?  As far as incorporating the existing stairs to your living area?  This could be as simple as building a wall around the head of the stairs.  I don't know the layout so I can't comment beyond that at this point.  Of course there are alternatives to standard stairs..you can do a split landing where the stairs go down so far to a landing and then turn or switch back.  You have circular stair options that take up less floor space but are harder to maneuver around if you are carrying laundry baskets, furniture etc.  Another option may be to change the direction of the stairs coming in from the garage.  Is it possible to turn the stairs around so that you can enter the stairs from the house instead of the garage? It is possible to tweak the stair layout by increasing riser height and shortening tread depth but you don't want to get too severe and create a tripping hazard. I hope this information helps please feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com